Am Bb Gm Bb
I believed they had got what they came for;
F Bb Dm
I believed our peril was done
Am Bb Gm Bb
On the eve of the last of the Great Wars
F Bb Dm
After three we had narrowly won
F Bb F
(But the fourth It was carelessly done.)
F Am Dm Gm C D#
I saw his ship in its whistling ascension
G# F G7
As they launched from the Capitol seat–
Bb E
Swear I saw our mistake
A Dm Bb
When the clouds draped like a flag
D# F
Across the backs of the fleet
Bb D# F
Of the Hundred-First Lightborne Elite
Am Bb
As the day is long
Dm F
So the well runs dry
D# Bb
And we came to see Time is taller
F C
Than Space is wide
Am Bb
And we bade goodbye
Dm F
To the Great Divide:
D# Bb F C
Found unlimited simulacreage to colonize!
Am Bb Gm Bb
But there was a time we were lashed to the prow
F Bb Dm
Of a ship you may board, but not steer
Am Bb Gm Bb
Before you and I ceased to mean now
F Bb Dm
And began to mean only right Here
F Bb F
To mean Inches and Miles, but not Years
F Am Dm Gm C D#
Before Space has a taste of its limits
G# F G7
And a new sort of coordinate awoke
Bb E A Dm
Leaving Time just another poor tenant:
Bb D# F
Bearing weight, taking fire, trading smokes
Bb D# F
In the war between us and our ghosts
Am Bb Dm F
But I saw the Bering Strait and the Golden Gate
D# Bb F C
In silent suspension of their golden age!
Am Bb Dm F
And you can barely tell, if I guard it well
D# Bb F C
Where I have been, and seen Pristine, unfelled.
Am Bb Gm Bb
I had a dream that I walked in the garden
F Bb Dm
Of Chabot, and those telescope ruins
Am Bb Gm Bb
It was there that I called to my true love
F Bb Dm
Who was pale as millennial moons
F Bb F
Honey, where did you come by that wound?
F Am Dm Gm
When I woke, he was gone
C D#
And the War had begun
G# F G7
In eternal return and repeat
Bb E A Dm
Calling, Where in the hell are the rest of your fellow
Bb D# F
One Hundred-One Lightborne Elite?
Bb D# F
Stormed in the New Highland Light Infantry
Am Bb
Make it stop, my love!
Dm F
We were wrong to try
D# Bb
Never saw what we could unravel
F C
In traveling light
Am Bb
Nor how the trip debrides–
Dm F
Like a stack of slides!
D# Bb F C
All we saw was that Time is taller than Space is wide
Am Bb Gm Bb
That's why we are bound to a round desert island
F Bb Dm
'neath the sky where our sailors have gone
Am Bb Gm Bb
Have they drowned, in those windy highlands?
F Bb F
Highlands away, my John
Am, Bb, Dm, F, D#, Bb, F, C (x2)
Am, Bb, Gm, Bb
F Bb Dm
Highlands away, my John
Am, Bb, Gm, Bb, D#, Bb, F
D# Bb F
Highlands away, my John
